


Glittering Blackness

by insunshine, sinuous_curve



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Panic At The Disco, The Academy Is...
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-06
Updated: 2010-06-06
Packaged: 2017-10-09 22:54:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/92477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insunshine/pseuds/insunshine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinuous_curve/pseuds/sinuous_curve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On his sixteenth birthday, Brendon ditches the party his parents planned with all and any sundry family members invited and goes with a friend to a guy he knows who does decent, cheap tattoos out of an unlicensed and probably really fucking illegal studio in his garage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glittering Blackness

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by xthebackseatx

On his sixteenth birthday, Brendon ditches the party his parents planned with all and any sundry family members invited and goes with a friend to a guy he knows who does decent, cheap tattoos out of an unlicensed and probably really fucking illegal studio in his garage. He rolls up his sleeve, sets his arm down on the table and says, "Do something with music. Piano, I guess." Four hours later he has a series of warped, free handed keys pouring out of his forearm.

Brendon loves it.

His parents see it the next morning and tell him to get out. He does.

He meets Bill a year, he thinks, to the day when he left. William's all long limbs and smooth words, and his face is beautiful. Brendon calls him Too - Long and grins bright when Bill chooses to stand with him that morning instead of anyone else. It's Victoria's morning, it's Victoria's fucking corner, to be perfectly honest, but Bill walks it like he owns it, and on that first day, something like awareness digs low in Brendon's stomach.

They fuck an hour after the sun goes down (busking is worse at night when people can't see your earnest face, can't see how thin your fingers are and just how much you need the money, please), with Bill's forearms braced against the hood of an abandoned car, Brendon's hands riding low on his hips, leaving marks and bruises, memories. Brendon likes leaving pieces of himself on other people, likes it when they leave pieces of themselves with him.

"You know," Bill says, after, after Brendon's pulled out, after the condom has been disposed of (come on. For all intents and purposes, they live on the street. Brendon may like the slipslide feel of sex, but he's not an idiot), and he's turned, bracing an arm over his eyes to block out the weak light from a street lamp, grinning and blissed out. "I don't even know your name."

"Do you need to?" Brendon's always ready with an answer, which is something he prides himself on. Brendon prides himself on a lot of things, and he leans forward, catching Bill's mouth again.

He'd like to think that this is where it starts.

\--

Bill has a friend named Gabe who has a friend named Ryland who is both a busker and the renter of a shitty apartment that has a leaky ceiling and ancient plumbing, but plenty of floorspace for anyone who needs to crash.

They stay up late that night, Brendon sitting with his back against the couch, surrounded by a shifting mass of dozens of people, constantly flowing in and out, laughing, picking at their instruments, singing and even dancing a little. Bill pulls out a joint and they pass it back and forth, sitting in easy, companionable silence, watching the people around them.

"Bill, who's your friend?" Ryland's boyfriend, Alex, asks from Ryland's lap.

He looks over at Brendon, joint held between long fingers and laughs. "I don't know, Alex. Why don't you ask him?"

"Brendon," he says with a half smile. "I'm Brendon."

\--

Saturday afternoons are spent in a local park, off the main drags crowded with too many people for anyone to stop long to drop a handful of change or a spare buck into Brendon's guitar case. They stake out a bench; Brendon sits cross legged with his guitar balanced on his knees and Bill sits on the back, feet beside Brendon's thigh.

It's nice, those days, with people lingering to listen to them, almost like they're just two people playing for the hell of it, throwing out notes and beats to the world because they can. Bill's taps out rhythms with his thumb on Brendon's shoulder, keeping time with that steady thud, thud, thud. Brendon's fingers ease over the strings and he's got his eyes closed, coaxing out all the pretty melodies he can.

Sometimes he wonders why Bill stayed.

Brendon turns his head and kisses Bill's wrist and he laughs, touching the tip of his nose to the crown of Brendon's head.

He's happy.

\--

Brendon doesn't live on the streets. It's a common misconception that all buskers do, common enough that sometimes if he pouts his lips and offers to play a faded memory of a tune, people will drop more in his case, older women twisting their fingers tightly together to try and keep their hands from patting at his head, pursing their lips to keep the invitation for a home cooked meal and a place to sleep from coming out. They press their hands to their chests and think, he looks like my grandson. Those are the ones who leave the most money, and Brendon doesn't like cheating people, actually has it better than you'd think, but he's never going to say no to cash.

He doesn't have his own place. That would be ridiculous. That would be a paper trail and more money than he actually has, but he bunks with Victoria a lot, and Vicky's resourceful. There's always a roof over her head at night and Brendon's lucky she likes him. That's what she says, smoking cigarette after cigarette that will ruin her voice one day.

She doesn't seem to care much, just grins at him and lets him crawl between her legs, lets him pant against her shoulder and push inside with an ease one wouldn't expect from someone so young. She grins when he finds her sensitive places and grins when he doesn't, and smokes through it, because it's the only way she can keep her hands from shaking.

\--

In high school, Brendon liked music written before he was born. He liked old rock and jazz, songs with heavy beats and guitar, songs with lyrics that meant something so much more than a pimp getting his hos in line.

"Play your favorite song," Bill says one afternoon. "I'll sing it."

Brendon smirks. "What if you don't know it?"

"Oh, I'll know it, Brenny-baby." Bill ruffles his hair. "Go."

He doesn't have to think, his fingers are already forming the opening chords of "It Ain't Me Babe," and Bill is genuinely smiling, laughing with a kind of delight Brendon's never quite heard from him before. "Good choice," Bill says and begins the song, sliding around the notes like he loves them and Brendon thinks maybe he does.

\--

Vicky's waiting on the corner, cigarette glowing faintly orange in the dying light when Brendon walks up with Bill's fingers hooked loosely on his belt loops. She looks up and, for a split second, her smiles falters and fractures and Brendon's feels a jolt of uncertainty shoot through his stomach, but in a blink it's gone and Vicky's back. She raises a hand in hello, smirking and smiling, just like always and Brendon smiles back.

They, not just him and Vicky, but all the buskers, communicate in a language of looks and gestures, single words that mean volumes, and speeches that echo one idea.

"Hey, kid," Vicky says, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "Hey, Bill."

"Hello, Miss Victoria," Bill drawls and Brendon snorts out a laugh. Of course they know each other.

Vicky kisses both their cheeks, stubbing her cigarette out; she lets her hand linger on Brendon's hip and he smiles into her hair. Maybe, he always thinks when it comes to Vicky, maybe. "Hey, so, who owns this three couch, two bedroom palace you're so excited about?"

Vicky laughs, running a hand through her head. "It's like a soap opera, seriously. His name's Pete. He's not one of us, he's just apparently rich and bored and drawn to broken little boys and girls."

Brendon laughs and rolls his eyes, tipping his head onto Bill's shoulder. "So long as the plumbing works."

\--

Vic's been sleeping with this Pete as long as Brendon's known her, so that's over a year, almost, closer to two, and Brendon's heard a lot, but doesn't expect much when the door swings open. He's not overwhelmed. Pete's small, dark and wiry with two whole sleeves of ink dotting his arms, and he grins big and bright when he sees Victoria. He smiles even bigger when he catches sight of Bill.

Brendon sleeps on one couch, and Victoria on the other, but by morning, they're tangled together, Vicky rocking down hard against Brendon's hips, silent, silent because Pete's door is cracked open. Bill's not on the other couch, and if Brendon cranes his neck, he can just make out his form alongside Pete's in the bed.

It's not jealousy ricocheting in his stomach, and later, when Pete lays out lines for all of them, the grin on his face fixed permanent, Brendon watches Vicky's head duck, watches the practiced way she holds back her hair, and follows.

\--

Brendon doesn't know where he is or when he is, fuck, he doesn't know who he is.

His back is up against a wall, legs wrapped around Bill's waist, teeth sunk into the meat of his shoulder, being filled, filled, filled. Everything is heightened, distant and immediate, scents and sounds and sights. Bill's head is thrown back, hair damp against his neck and he's beautiful, so very fucking beautiful.

Someone's laughing in the back corners of his mind, laughing and singing, maybe it's Pete, maybe it's Vicky, maybe it's Bill, fuck, maybe it's him, but none of that matters. His fingers scrabble against the brick wall, scraping his finger tips and his back is rubbed raw, but it's good, it's so fucking good.

"With me?" Bill asks, pushing his head down, leaving hot kisses on Brendon's neck. "With me?"

"Always," Brendon says, laughing and crying, "Always."

\--

Brendon doesn't work with addictions, they work with him. He plays on the street, strings sure and strong under his fingers, and he smokes more than Vicky does to break and shatter the holy thing that comes forth from his voice box, from his throat. He misses the swell and pound of music, misses the vowels that fall past his lips, but he won't. He won't, not with Bill plastered against one side and Vicky on the other.

Not when Pete picks him out of the crowd, not when Pete looks at him with eyes that say they know his secret.

Brendon grins, and Brendon laughs, and Brendon fucks, gets fucked, pushes harder. Brendon doesn't talk about it, and Pete keeps looking.

"Your boyfriend probably wouldn't appreciate you being back here," he says one night, standing in Pete's kitchen, hands shaking because it's been three days without a hit and he's getting restless. Brendon doesn't work with addictions, they work with him, and he needs. Pete laughs, head tipped back, but Brendon doesn't look at him, can't.

"Don't have a boyfriend, little one," and Brendon's sure that wasn't meant to be menacing. Or maybe, knowing Pete, it was. He's getting closer, all warmhot breath gliding up and down the back of Brendon's neck. Brendon wants, and he wants, and his skin is itching with need, itching with something that sex can't give him. "Want to -- "

"You can fuck me," Brendon says, not even bothering to close his eyes, barely moving. Pete's been circling for weeks, Vicky's been watching, always, always watching, and Bill. Brendon can't think of Bill without it calling up a sweet ache from between his legs. "You can fuck me," he says again, and when he looks at Pete, his features are drawn.

"Too fucking easy," he says, and Brendon laughs, laughs loud and free and easy.

Pete cuts the lines, and Brendon's on his knees. It's that simple.

\--

Brendon wakes up with cotton in his mouth and pain throbbing between his temples and down his spine.

He shifts, bones and joints creaking and aching, crying out with every movement, and it takes him a long moment to realize there's an arm across his waist, heavy, pinning him uncomfortably to the mattress. "Fuck," Brendon exhales, cracking his eyes open to too familiar ink on pale skin, turns his head to find dark hair splashed across the pillow. "Pete," Brendon mumbles, throwing an arm across his eyes.

He doesn't remember.

It's sometime in the late afternoon, the light coming in through the slats of the blinds in tinged with dark gold, dying light. He can hear voices from the other rooms, the low thud of a bass line, shivering along the floors. It's always a party at Pete's, someone said and, at the time, Brendon smiled.

Pete snuffles in his sleep.

He doesn't remember.

\--

He's clean for a whole two days, shivering even in sunlight, smoking cigarette after pilfered cigarette from the purse Victoria insists is hers. "You okay, kid?" It's early, and the platform they play on is deserted. Brendon hasn't slept since his last hit, can't close his eyes for fear they'll stay stuck shut.

"Fine," he mutters back at her. His entire body aches in places he didn't remember he had, and the sun is too bright, even though it's hidden behind hazy rain clouds. It's going to be a slow day, Brendon can feel it. "I'm always fine, Vic." He smiles with a twist of his mouth and a flash of his teeth, and she holds her cigarette aside, blowing the smoke away from her face and leans down to kiss him, free hand curling around his neck.

They fuck right there, against rain-slick pavement, Victoria pushing her skirt up her thighs, sheathing herself on him, eyes staring straight into his, lips pressed hard against his chin. She bites, leaves little marks on his skin, whispers silent secrets against his flushed and sweaty skin. A moan rips from her throat when he bucks up, pushing as deep inside of her as he can get from this angle.

She kisses him, light, lips molding themselves to his, pulling back to get air and drags from her cigarette every once in a while, grinding her hips down on his and grinning when his eyes finally slide shut. She kisses his lids, pressing her smile against his cheek and whispers nonsense words when he comes inside of her.

Brendon presses his face to her chest and breathes in the cleansweet smell of her, and wishes that this were enough.

\--

They're in Pete's apartment, in Pete's fucking bed, but Pete himself, the grand architect of things chemical and divine, isn't there.

Brendon's on his back, fingers tangled in the rumpled sheets, with Bill between his legs and Vicky across his hips, fucking and being fucked, filling and being filled, and he feels like he's coming apart in the only honest way. He watches as Bill sucks on her neck, watches Vicky turns her head and kisses him over her shoulder.

They're beautiful.

They splay their hands across his hips,Vicky's on top of Bill's, their fingers sinking through his skin to muscle and bone and essence and Brendon arches his back, pushing harder into the touch.

They leave marks and bruises and he loves them, he loves them.

\--

Pete's apartment has a balcony that connects the bedroom and the living room and Brendon finds a weird kind of peace standing on it, staring out at the bright lights and cheap dreams. His hands are shaking just a little and he can feel the tendrils of need snaking down from the back of his brain to twine around his spine. For the moment, he's fine, but only for the moment. He inhales and exhales, feels the cool night against his skin and closes his eyes.

The door slides open and closed and Brendon goes still, expecting Pete's palms to slide over his shoulders and down his chest, whispering sweet poison in his ear and Brendon knows in his gut he will say yes, because he's forgotten how to say no.

Bill leaning against the railing sends a little shock of surprise and something that feels uncomfortably close to guilt shooting through his stomach. "Hey," Bill says softly and he's pale in the dimming light, pale with his bones cut sharper than usual, long sleeved shirt hanging loose on his skinny body.

"Hey," Brendon rasps back. His throat feels tight, voice shot.

"I was thinking maybe we could crash at Ryland and Alex's place for a couple nights," Bill says softly. "Or maybe Gabe's. Butcher's going to New Mexico or actual Mexico, I don't even know, so he's got a free couch." Bill licks his lips and looks at Brendon, eyes pleading and Brendon's heart maybe breaks just a little. "It might be good to take a break."

"I'm fine here," Brendon says and Bill nods. "Yeah, okay."

He thinks it's the first time he's ever lied to Bill and it weighs heavy on his mind.

\--

Vicky's not there when Brendon gets to his corner, which is weird, but not weird enough to comment on. Brendon hasn't seen her for a couple of days, and Bill more than that, but they've been going from place to place, and he hasn't. Pete's bed is always open, and Brendon's not giving that up for a couch in a tiny apartment, not when he can get all that warmth.

She shows up a little past eleven, hair hanging tangled and unwashed around her shoulders, her skin pale and taut across her cheekbones, eyes hollow. Brendon can barely keep his head up, can barely make sure his fingers are still on the strings, but Vicky's face is a mess, and it makes something like awareness hit somewhere around his heart.

"What's up, Vix?" She doesn't smile at the nickname, she barely looks at him at all, hands wringing, the cuffs of her over sized sweatshirt covering the trackmarks on her wrists. Her chin is wobbling, and Brendon's never seen her as anything but strong. "Vic, come on. You're scaring the shit out of me here." She isn't, not really, Brendon doesn't scare easy, at least he didn't used to. Blood on pillows in the morning tells a different story. "Victoria, come on. What the hell." She stays silent, swaying heavily on unsteady feet. "Are you dying, or something? Shit, come on." He moves to stand, or moves to moves to stand, but he doesn't have legs anymore, they've melted into the pavement.

"Good as," she mumbles, and uses the back of her wrist as a blotter for the tears in her eyes. Brendon can't breathe, something hottight and heavy knotting his throat.

"Vic -- "

"I'm pregnant, kid. Fucking pregnant." She collapses down next to him, burrowing her head against the bones of his shoulder. He can't feel her weight, he can barely feel himself.

"I thought." He starts the sentence, but he's not entirely sure he knows how to finish it. "Who's?" he manages, massaging at her side with stiff and foreign fingers. This isn't his hand, it can't possibly be, it doesn't belong to his body, it's anchorless, and Brendon doesn't feel like he belongs to anything.

Victoria huffs out a watery laugh against his neck and squeezes herself tighter against him, forcing herself into his space. Brendon's heart is thudding hard in his chest, moving faster than it ever has. "Don't know," she whispers, and Brendon tips his head back against the wall, resisting the urge to beat it against the bricks, even though he won't be able to feel it.

He misses being able to feel.

"It'll be okay, Tor," he whispers the words light against her cheek, hand tightening against her hip. "No matter what, it'll be okay."

He kisses her forehead, her eyes, her mouth, and wishes the words were true for both of them.

\--

Vicky vanishes into the dusk without saying where she's going and what she's doing, arms wrapped tight around her waist, almost protective. Brendon watches, chest so tight he can barely breathe, skittering out discordant notes and chords with unsteady fingers. He watches her vanish into the crowds, hunched and shaking and he wishes he could coordinate his limbs to get up and follow her, to whisper all the comfort words he used to know.

He stops paying attention, seeing her bruised eyes in his mind.

"The first rule of being a busker," Bill once told him, "Is that you always have to know what's going on."

He doesn't see them come up, sure as fuck doesn't notice the goddamn baseball bat, which, in retrospect is probably the funniest thing about the whole mess. How the hell do you not notice a twenty something in a wifebeater holding a fucking baseball bat? It's so stupid, he knows better, that for those with something to prove on the streets the buskers are punching bags, but he just doesn't see.

"Hey," one of them yells and Brendon jerks his head up in time to see the bat flash in front of his eyes before slamming into his side with enough force to send him sprawling to the pavement, pain exploding in his side. His guitar skitters away, he sees a foot come down, snapping the neck and the strings and Brendon cries out because it's his life, that guitar, his means and, sometimes, his only friend.

He curls into a ball and tries not to scream, but he can't help it and he does, he screams and no one comes.

\--

Brendon doesn't know how long it takes him to get to Pete's. Doesn't know how long it takes him to stand and spit the blood out of his mouth.

The door is open once Brendon manages to make it up the flight of stairs, and his clothes are sticking to him with sweat and blood, and Brendon feels dirty in a way that no amount of soap and water can scrub off. Pete's grinning at him until Brendon actually gets in front of him, and even hind exhausted, weary eyes, Brendon can recognize the fear there.

"You okay, little one?" The teasing glint is back, the easy grin, but Brendon had seen it, and he would smile, a little, would fucking beam at Pete, because Pete cares and maybe Pete's got a crush on him, which Brendon would think was fucking hilarious if his entire body didn't hurt. "You look like shit."

"I need to get out of here," Brendon says, "And I need a fucking shower." Pete grins at him, teeth glinting in the weak light from the hall light. "Why don't you do that, and I'll get us ready out here?"

He lingers beneath the spray while the water turns cool, then cold, lingering until his teeth are chattering and his body is shaking from bone deep hurt. The apartment is too quiet, with only Pete rattling around inside, and the silence echoes much louder than any sound ever could. It strikes Brendon that Pete's biggest problem is that he's fucking lonely and he wishes he could feel something for that realization, if only for a moment.

Drying is agony, dressing is worse, easing into loose sweatpants and a tee shirt as he tosses his old stuff, too blood stained to be salvageable, into the trash.

Pete's sitting cross legged by the coffee table, lines already neatly cut, looking expectantly at Brendon. "I need to go," Brendon says, "Tori, Vicky, she's going through some bad shit and I need to go."

"Right." Pete taps the razor on the battered surface, running the blade between the lines and Brendon wants, he wants so bad he can feel it pulsing in the marrow of his bones, the pit of his fucking soul. "One more, kid? For the road?"

"I can't," Brendon says faintly, but he takes a step closer. "Pete."

"C'mon." Pete pats the ground beside him. "Just one more."

Brendon remembers his mother telling him that once you sell your soul there's no getting it back. "Yeah. Okay."

\--

It's a bad high. It's the worst high he's ever had.

He thinks maybe he's dying.

The thought probably shouldn't make him happy.

\--

Pete's still asleep when Brendon wakes up in the morning for real, and his face feels wet, like there's water dripping from his very skin. The hand he raises to wipe it all away comes back bloody and Brendon can't breathe, he's choking so hard on it. Pete's heavy against his side, Pete's dead to the world, and Brendon hates him just a little.

Or a lot, maybe. Brendon really hates him a lot. He doesn't bother with another shower, wipes his face with the clean side of the pillowcase and pushes out of bed with barely a sound. Pete sleeps through it, or at least pretends he does, and Brendon leaves without saying goodbye. He's pretty sure that's all the ending they deserved anyway.

He gulps out mass quantities of air once he gets outside, breathing and breathing and breathing until he can't anymore, until his lungs are so filled with oxygen he might burst. His face hurts like a bitch and his ribs hurt worse, but he thinks he's free. Maybe not from vice, that'll follow him wherever he goes, but from Pete, maybe.

It's funny, because Pete never asked him to stay. Pete'll probably have someone new by the end of the week and Brendon won't even be a footnote. Brendon likes leaving his mark, likes leaving memories, but he's pretty sure Pete's scarred his life too much already, there's nothing left for Brendon to change.

The bench he settles on is far enough away from Pete's building that Brendon can't see it, even though he knows it's there, looming and in the distance, looking like nothing more or nothing less than what it really is. Brendon likes that even if Pete wanted to, he couldn't see him. It's almost freeing, for the moment, to be swathed in this fog, to be on his own, to be free.

It's only then that Brendon remembers that he's alone.

\--

Maybe he sits there for ten minutes or maybe it's ten hours, he can't tell. Time slips through his fingers like water, insubstantial and meaningless.

Ache settles into his skin, ghosting out along his ribs with every inhale and exhale of breath. His hands are raw, burning with the need to fit along the frets and strings of his guitar, but his guitar is in so many splinters of wood in an alley, shattered beyond hope of recovery or repair. He thinks he might be crying, but he can't really tell and the need is beginning to buzz insistently in the joints of his mind. He wishes, for a moment, he hadn't woken up.

"Help," he whispers. "Help me."

Bill turning the corner, Bill in battered jeans and a white tee shirt, he thinks at first that his is mind fucking with him.

"Hey, Brenny," Bill says softly, sitting down next to him, laying an arm around his shoulders. It hurts, the contact, but it's real and it's good and now Brendon knows he's crying.

"I don't know what to do," Brendon confesses. He feels unanchored and hopeless, not drifting from place to place like he has, but rather disconnected from the world and he hates it.

Bill pulls him close, gentle and careful. "Just say the word, Brendon, say the word and I'll do it."

"Bill," he exhales.

It's hard. He walked away from home at sixteen with a promise to himself he would never rely on anyone, he would never ask for anything, he would never need a goddamn thing beyond what he could get for himself. But his hands are shaking, arms and legs, body, shaking and breaking apart, and the promise made in his sixteen year old mind suddenly seems like less a declaration of freedom than a chain trapping him in a world he never really wanted.

"You gotta say it, Bren." Bill kisses his temple. "I can't. This can't be me making you. But, I won't stay and watch you kill yourself."

"Help." Brendon swallows and tastes the faint copper tang of blood. "I need help, Bill."

"Okay." He nods, voice tight and thin. "Okay."

\--

They say the first day is the hardest. At least Bill says they do, and Brendon's inclined to believe everything Bill says. This, though, is bullshit. The first day is nothing compared to the fifth, nowhere near as bad as the eighteenth, and by the thirty-sixth day of being clean, Brendon is ready to sell his soul and various body parts just for the feel of it inside him. It's a want, clawing at him, beneath his skin, beneath his consciousness, even, and Brendon only knows that because Bill makes him talk about every fucking little thing. Bill holds him down, and holds him open and fucks the words out of him, fucks bruises into his skin, fresh ones.

The difference is that Brendon wants these. He craves them, more than the darkness that curls in his stomach, more than the yearning and the need.

Bill says, "Bren, Bren, I need you to promise me," on the forty-third day. Brendon can barely see straight, his body hurts so badly and the room isn't anything but shapes and dark colors. Brendon doesn't leave most days, not if he can help it; barely makes it to Gabe's kitchen on his worst ones, and when he shakes, when he slips, when it hurts so bad that his body is tearing open with it, Bill is there.

Bill doesn't leave him if he can help it, and Brendon will never be able to say how grateful he is.

Bill wouldn't let him anyway.

"Bren," Bill says again, and Brendon forces his eyes open even though it hurts and Bill knows it does. This hurts more than anything he's ever felt. "Brendon, I need you to promise me." Brendon can't keep his eyes open, so he doesn't, and coughs the words past his lips. "Anything." He coughs again, and keeps his eyes closed, terrified of seeing blood. "Fuck you, you know that."

They get the tattoos the day after, hands gripped together and knuckles white.

Brendon can't find it in himself to regret it.

\--

He's sitting on Gabe's couch, knees tucked up to his chest, staring out the window as the sun comes up and, for the first time in what feels like a thousand years, there's no fog on his head, chemical or pain induced. It's like the top layer of his self has been scraped off, peeled away, and tossed out. Brendon aches a little, in his joints and connections, but it's not a bad ache, just the faint echoed reminder of what's been.

Gabe's in the kitchen with Nate, both of them talking in low, contented voices as they make coffee. Brendon knows he owes them more than he can ever possibly say, if only from the faint flashes of twisted memory that sometimes rise to the surface; Nate pressed along his back as he hunches over the toilet, bringing up nothing but acid and bile, Gabe pressing wet washcloths to his forehead as he shook.

"Morning." Bill sits down on the couch in wash faded flannel pajama pants and a zipped up hoodie, tired, but smiling faintly. "You look..."

"Clean?" Brendon offers.

"Alive." Bill smiles and laces their fingers. "Alive, Bren."

Brendon squeezes his hand and sighs. "Thank you."

Bill says nothing, just looks down at his lap and swallows and something uncomfortable and tight slithers through Brendon's chest. "What. Bill, what?"

"Vicky."

Fear blossoms, hard and insistent, and Brendon feels bile rise in his throat. He's thought about her every moment since the fog in his mind cleared enough for him to remember more than faces and images, disconnected names. The last time he saw her, walking away from the corner with her arms folded tight across her chest and a life settled low in her stomach, she said she didn't know what she was going to do. She said it might be his. "Is she okay?"

Bill ducks his head and shifts closer. "She lost the baby."

White noise sounds in Brendon's ears, rushing and screaming. "What?"

"The baby," Bill repeats softly. "She lost it. And she's still with Pete."

Brendon shudders hard, stiffening. "We have to go get her. We have to. Bill. We can't let her stay there, she's as fucked up as me. More than."

"She won't leave," Bill says. "She doesn't want help."

"We won't give her a choice."

"And what good will that do? You have to want help or else it's just wasting everyone's time."

Brendon jerks away, pulling his hand back. Vicky, his Vick, Vix, Vixen, Tori, Tor, his Victoria. "She'll die in there, Bill. She will die."

"I already tried!" William pushes himself up off the couch, slamming his hand against the wall. Brendon's goes still, faintly aware of Gabe and Nate coming into the living room. "I tried, I fucking tried, and she didn't want anything to do with it."

Brendon shakes his head and closes his eyes, feels the couch dip and arms slide around him, but he can't look, as he mumbles a prayer to a God he stopped believing in to save a girl named Victoria.

\--

Brendon still doesn't leave Gabe's that often, even though now he can. Bill takes to making him lists of things to do during the day so he won't get bored, leaving them under his pillow, leaving them on the fridge or one of the couches. He knows how restless Brendon gets. Nate's awake when Brendon stumbles out of the bedroom, working on a crossword puzzle.

He's prettier than Brendon remembers, but then, Brendon doesn't remember much.

Nate grins at him though, his shaggy bangs falling into his face, and Brendon tries grinning back, almost surprised that his mouth can move that easily. "Bill left stuff," Nate says, and that's not so unusual, either, Bill having other people in on it. Brendon grins again, thinking of Bill, and it feels good to do, like his muscles are working with sense memory that was long dormant.

"Stuff, huh?" Brendon mutters, mostly to himself, and then his eyes practically bug out of his head when he sees the brochures. "What the hell?" Nate shrugs again, taking an almost dainty sip of coffee.

"Said to make sure you looked through those and not to get mad and," he pauses for a second, scratching at the skin right above his eyebrow. "That I couldn't let you leave until you made a decision." Brendon doesn't know if he should be grateful or angry, so he just settles for confused, which isn't that far from how he's felt for a while now, actually.

He settles on the couch clutching the pieces of paper like they're his lifeline, and maybe they are. "Hey, um. So. Washington state or DC?" Nate picks his head up, looking startled, surprised that Brendon would be asking his opinion, of all things.

"What's a four-letter word meaning 'ruler'?" He asks, and Brendon blinks at him before automatically responding with, "King. Wait. What is this, the question game?"

"Can't be king," Nate says thoughtfully, smiling a little. It's nice, and a little easy on the edges, and Brendon thinks it's just about the prettiest thing he's ever seen. "There's a 'z' in it." Brendon is silent, contemplative for a minute, but in the end he just ends up blinking. Gabe's boyfriend is weird. Cute, but weird. "And you're gonna wanna go to state," he adds, mostly as an afterthought. "DC's too crowded."

\--

Bill crawls into bed that night with his lips attaching firmly to Brendon's collarbone, and his hands sliding across the bare skin of Brendon's hips. "Mm," Brendon says, "Hey." The lights are off, because he was dozing, actually, but he can still see Bill's smile. He can feel it. Bill snorts a little in the darkness, spreading himself onto his back and manhandling Brendon's head down against his chest.

"So the weirdest thing happened today," Brendon says, and his voice sounds rusty, worn weary from lack of use, but his tone is light. Bill shifts, leaning down to press his lips against the crown of Brendon's head.

"What happened today, Bren?"

"Not only did I wake up with a babysitter," this time Bill does snort, and Brendon smiles again too, will never be surprised that he still can. "And a whole folder full of out of state brochures. Are you planning on moving, Bills?" Bill shifts, his hand sliding down the length of Brendon's body and touching the inked skin of his hip. "Not without you, Brendon." His voice is practically silent and viciously serious. "Don't even fucking kid around."

Brendon blinks and straightens, turning back to face him, even though he can't see his eyes in the darkness. "We don't have a car. We don't know anyone. Where would we go, even?" Bill smiles. Brendon can feel it more than anything, knows the ins and outs of Bill's body better than he knows the ones of his own.

Bill kisses him, hands cupping his face. "None of those questions are a no."

Brendon blinks again. "What?"

"None," Bill says, kissing him softly, so softly, until Brendon is the one whose mouth opens under the onslaught. Bill pulls back, just a fraction of an inch. "Of," and he kisses Brendon again. Brendon's starting to get it, or his body is at least, and he tries not to follow Bill's mouth when he pulls away. "Those -- "

"Were a no, I know, what you're trying to say, I just don't -- "

Bill laughs, and the sound is free and clear and easy, and it never fails to make Brendon's skin settle. He kisses Brendon again, enough so that Brendon forgets everything, forgets that horrors that are still hiding behind his eyes, forgets where they are, and the never ending questions. Bill makes it all easier, and Brendon clings to Bill's shoulders.

"Brendon, Bren, come away with me, okay? Let me get you out of here."

\--

Brendon's shit at goodbyes,

He thinks about asking if they can sneak out in the middle of the night after Gabe and Nate have gone to sleep, even makes a casual suggestion to that effect, but Bill gives him a look and Brendon lets it go. Goodbyes are important, he knows that, but they're also hard and he's well aware that no amount of words can ever truly explain how grateful he is to the people around him for taking him in when they had no good reason to.

Standing on the sidewalk, next to the beat up, but still relatively serviceable piece of junk Bill got for two hundred dollars off the sister of a friend of the brother-in-law of a friend, Brendon feels his eyes prick and burn at the corners and he's not going to cry, he's not.

Gabe engulfs him in a hug, tight and solid, and Brendon sighs, pressing his face into the crook of Gabe's neck, squeezing back. "Thanks for giving me a place to sleep. And for teaching me to drive." Thanks for letting me sit in your shower for hours, letting me puke out my stomach in your bathroom, letting me go through hell and being there.

"Thanks for not crashing the car and killing me," Gabe chuckles. "And you always have a couch here, Bren."

Gabe lets go and Brendon smiles as Nate opens his arms and throws them around Brendon's neck. "You're going to love Washington," he says, ruffling Brendon's hair. "Just don't forget about us, okay?"

"I won't," Brendon murmurs, "I promise."

Nate kisses his cheek and lets him go, moving to slide an arm around Gabe's waist. "Don't be strangers," Gabe says and Brendon hooks his fingers around Bill's wrist. "We won't."

Bill gets in the driver seat and Brendon in the passenger; he waves out the back window, smiling and laughing a little, until they turn the corner and Gabe and Nate vanish behind the buildings. He settles down, watching the streets ease by outside the window, streets he has sang on and even slept on once or twice. Streets that are as close to home as he has ever gotten and as close to home as he ever expects to get.

The radio's on and Bill hums, tapping his finger against the steering wheel. He looks happy and almost safe and Brendon doesn't want to break that, but he has to ask. "Bill?"

"Hmm?"

Brendon inhales and exhales. "I want to go say goodbye to Vicky."

She's still with Pete, they both know. Sometimes, when Brendon leaves the apartment, he sees her standing on the corner, trying to sing and failing, eyes hooded in deep shadow, wearing long sleeved shirts that don't quite conceal the track marks lining her wrists like so many scars. Bill goes still, eyes fixed on the road, the cars easing past them, smooth and gentle. "No," Bill says, voice flat.

"Please," Brendon says softly. "Bill."

"No," Bill repeats and Brendon doesn't ask again.

\--

After driving through four states (and okay, no, Brendon doesn't do much of the driving, just spurts of time in the middle of the night when Bill was actually a danger behind the wheel, so tired he could barely see straight), Brendon is really, remarkably sick of the car. This, he realizes, is probably why he never learned to drive in the first place, nevermind that he was the youngest of five and it wasn't likely he would have ever gotten a car either way.

Bill seems to enjoy it though, the open road extending in front and in back of them, showcasing the places that they've seen and the ones they've yet to. If Brendon's completely honest with himself, he likes the car, likes the fact that it's taking them from one place to the next, likes that Bill is here with him.

He knows for a fact that he wouldn't be here at all without him, not in this car, not in fucking North Dakota and probably not even alive. Not the way he was going. He doesn't get nostalgic often, not with Bill next to him and the future ahead, but when he dreams, he still sees Vicky sometimes, laughing and sliding on top of him, her hands down his shirt, whispering silent secrets into his skin.

The nightmares are of her body, riddled with scars and scratches, bloody and pale and lifeless, empty.

Brendon doesn't remember, but in the mornings, Bill will tell him that he woke up screaming, that he'd been shaking, and that scares him more than anything else ever could.

"Hey Bren," Bill whispers, and he's close, Brendon knows he is, knows the way Bill's body works and the way he goes breathless and tight when he's about to come. He cants his hips forward and Brendon's the one that moans, trapped between Bill and the cracked-faux leather of the backseat.

"Mmm," Brendon mumbles back, because he's already there, come splattered over his chest and just the tops of Bill's fingers. Bill pushes in further, pushes in closer, mouth brushing Brendon's neck, soft, leaving a lingering promise. "What?" He tacks it on because Bill is silent, waiting for his answer, waiting for him to ask.

"Nothing," Bill mumbles to the hollow on Brendon's throat, tongue flicking out against his Adam's apple.

Brendon shivers and shudders, skin buzzing with the languid aftereffects of orgasm and he rolls his eyes. Bill, for all that he is the one constant in Brendon's life, sometimes treats him like he's going to break at the first hint of pressure, bowing and snapping beneath the ugly realities of the real world. "Bill," Brendon sighs.

He smiles to Brendon shoulder and starts humming, some damned top 40 song they've heard on the radio seven thousand two hundred and ninety-six times just since crossing the border between North Dakota and Montana four hours ago. Brendon cuffs the back of his head and rolls his eyes. "Fuck you, asshole, sometimes I wonder why I love you."

The words slip out easy and real.

Bill pulls back and Brendon goes still. "Love me?"

There are a hundred thousand replies to that on the tip of his tongue, yeses and nos, I don't knows, and maybe I used tos, and I always haves. Brendon turns his head and settles his hands on Bill's hips. "Only 'cause I'm desperate."

"Right," Bill laughs and the sound grates.

\--

Bill's antsy all day, he touches Brendon more, he hangs on him less, he'll start sentences but doesn't finish them, and they get lost three times before they get off the highway. "Hey," Brendon says, touching Bill's arm, softly and tentatively, and Bill stiffens because Brendon never touches him like that, Brendon doesn't touch anyone like that all.

"Hey, Bren -- " Brendon looks over at him and Bill's worrying his bottom lip up beneath his teeth, eyes focused on the road. His hand reaches out and for a second, Brendon thinks he's going to touch him. Bill's been touching him all day, but Brendon still misses it, still -- something. The pre-paid cell phone they bought in North Dakota rings, and Bill's face goes incandescent. "Dude, hey! Where the fuck are you?"

\--

Brendon's met Butcher before, Butcher has fantastic tattoos, kind eyes and sandy blond curls. He hugs Brendon so hard when they see each other that their bones crack, and waxes poetical about how awesomely weird the keys on his forearm are. Bill hangs over his shoulders and kisses his forehead, and it surprises Brendon how little it actually bothers him.

He likes Butcher.

\--

Brendon's sitting on a couch in the back room of the tattoo shop where Butcher's working/living/gracing with his presence until the wind blows and he wanders somewhere else, with his head on Butcher's thigh and his feet kicked up on the arm of the couch. Butcher and Bill are talking, reminiscing, and Brendon's listening with half an ear, contented and lulled by the steady rise and fall of their voices.

The walls are covered in half finished sketches and posters, pictures of finished tattoos. There's a one a day calendar tacked crookedly on beside the door to the shop proper. Brendon idly notes the date, April 11, as Butcher absently tangles his fingers in his hair, petting and playing, sending little soothing waves down Brendon's spine.

April 11.

Brendon blinks. Oh shit. Right.

He turns his head on Butcher's thigh and looks at Bill sitting cross legged in a battered armchair with his arms looped around one knee, head cocked, smiling at whatever Butcher's saying. He'll be eighteen in the morning. "Hey, I've gotta pee." Bill stands and arches his back, shirt riding up on his stomach. Brendon takes a moment to appreciate the view, as does Butcher, before Bill saunters out.

"Hey, Butch?"

Butcher looks down with a half smile. "Mm, yes, baby duck?"

Brendon rolls his eyes. He does not look like a fucking baby duck, Butcher's probably just on bad weed. "Can you ink me tomorrow?"

"Sure." Butcher raises an eyebrow. "Hell, I can do it now, if you want."

"No," Brendon shakes his head. "Tomorrow's good. And don't tell Bill, okay? I want it to be a surprise."

\--

It's weird, waking up in a tangle of limbs. Brendon's not used to it, not when he has his head on straight, but that doesn't mean he likes it any less. Bill's mumbling something in his sleep, long curls falling into his face, and Brendon grins a little stupidly, pushing a tendril out of his face. Bill is really pretty when he's sleeping. Butcher snuffles as Brendon eases himself out from between them, head moving to settle against Brendon's pillow.

Brendon stretches his arms up above his head and stretches, completely naked and not even bothering to look for his clothes. He's restless in the way that his skin itches, in the way he knows means he's dying to do something reckless. Bill hasn't said anything about what happens after Washington, and they've been traveling for the better part of a month, stopping off for days at a time. It's not that Brendon minds, Brendon likes being with Bill -- likes the open road enough that he'll keep going, but there's something in him that wants to settle.

The room they're staying in isn't much, certainly isn't space enough for three people, but Brendon's slept in smaller with more. He's mastered the art of making himself smaller than he really is. He had to.

"Bren?" Brendon blinks up and Bill's stretching his arms out, curling an arm around Butcher. "What's wrong?" His voice is a whisper, but there's an edge to it. Bill, better than anyone -- hell, Bill is the only who knows about the shaking late nights, and the times when Brendon would sneak out of bed foraging Gabe's apartment for something -- anything to help him get through it. Brendon swallows and closes his eyes and reminds himself that Bill isn't angry, Bill won't hurt him, Bill is just looking out for him.

"Nothing," Brendon stutters out, sliding his eyes open. "Nothing, Bills, just go back to sleep. I'm not tired anymore." Bill grins, and his teeth are blinding in the darkness.

"Come back to bed, kid. We'll figure out a way to tire you out." Brendon grins back, but he's shaking his head. Bill shrugs, but he settles back against the sheets. Brendon knows how much it's costing him to lean back against the mattress and slide his eyes closed. "I'll be right there, okay?"

Bill nods, but he doesn't open his eyes.

Brendon settles down against the foot of the bed and starts to hum.

\--

He doesn't get to sleep until watery early morning light starts filtering in through the window and he wakes hours later to Butcher humming and the rich scent of coffee floating through the room. He reaches out for Bill on instinct and finds empty sheets, rumpled and cool. "Morning," Butcher says, mattress dipping as he sits down. "I sent him to go visits with friends. You said you wanted this ink to be a surprise."

Brendon nods and yawns. "Thanks."

"No problem, kid." Butcher ruffles his hair. "What are we doing?"

\--

Brendon lays face down on the table, shirt off, as Butcher prepares the line art, meticulously copying the lines and notes, checking every now and again with Brendon to make sure he hasn't made a mistake.

"Why aren't you putting the lyrics on?" Butcher asks, showing Brendon the finished art. "It'll just take a minute to copy them down."

"No." Brendon shakes his head and smooths his fingers over the page, tapping out the beat with his thumb. "I just need the notes, you know? People will either know it or they won't. That's kind of the point."

Butcher smiles at him, soft and understanding, and God, Brendon really, really likes Butcher. "Okay, lie flat, Duck. Let's do this."

\--

Brendon didn't cry when he got his arm done, he was too happy, too excited, too hopped up on adrenaline and daring to feel anything but a thrill, let alone a pain at the feel of a needle inking its way across his skin. Bill's initials were harder, right on his hip, but it had been worth it. It had meant so much more than letters on his skin, and some days he needs to press his fingers against the marked skin there, to know it's real, to know it's over. To remember.

Brendon can't see much of Butcher, but he's trying to be soothing, tongue poking out from the corner of his mouth, whispering soothing things that aren't doing much to sooth at all. "Do you want me to stop?" Brendon stiffens, which is horrible, which is like, the worst thing you can do when you're getting inked, and he clamps his teeth into his forearm to keep from screaming out. This hurts more than he'd expected it to, but then, he thinks that's the point.

"Keep going," he croaks out, and Butcher nods. Butcher, Brendon is beginning to learn, is a pretty smart guy. "Just. You have to keep going."

It's bad. Brendon's never been good with pain, not really, but he's never been this particularly awful with it either. It feels like Butcher's been scraping at his skin for hours, days, and it hurts so terribly that he's pretty sure he'll never be able to lie flat on his back again. He grits his teeth and lets a breath out through his nose and promises himself he doesn't care.

He doesn't care right up until Bill pushes back into the room, scarf pressed across his cheeks. Brendon's pretty sure he's never seen anyone look so shocked.

"What the hell." Brendon's also pretty sure he's never heard Bill sound so angry.

"Done," Butcher says, pulling back the gun and switching it off, smearing gel to the bottom corner of Brendon's back and stepping away. Brendon lets out a long sigh and presses his forehead to his arm. Fuck, God, fuck. His keys took a little more than an hour and he's been laying there for the better part of four. He aches and Bill is staring at him.

"What the hell is this?" Bill asks, arms folded over his chest.

Brendon turns his head and offers him a wry, half smile. "Come look, jackass."

Bill reluctantly crosses the room, like he's afraid he'll find a picture of Pete's face etched into Brendon's skin, or an ode to the joys of coke. Brendon inhales and exhales, distantly thinking how much it's going to fucking suck to try and train himself to sleep on his stomach for the next month. "What the hell did you do, Brenny?" Bill asks, looking down and Brendon closes his eyes.

"I'm remembering."

He can feel Bill's eyes on his skin, tracing over the notes, and when the hum starts up low in the back of Bill's throat he smiles. "It ain't me, babe," Bill murmurs. "It ain't me you're looking for. Christ Brendon."

"I'm eighteen today," Brendon says quietly.

Bill rubs his thumb over Brendon's skin, leans over and kisses the back of his head. "Happy birthday, kid."

\--

Brendon should have had the foresight to remember that he'd be spending at least twelve more hours in a sitting position, but he didn't, and they bundle him up and leave him in the backseat, stomach flat against the leather, while Butcher and Bill trade stories up front. Brendon almost likes this better, getting to watch Bill animated, watch him at ease with someone.

It breaks Brendon's heart more than a little that he'll never be able to do that for him.

He doesn't let himself think about it.

\--

They reach Washington in record time. Probably because Brendon didn't drive at all. He's asleep when they get there, and Bill doesn't wake him, just edges his body to wrap alongside Brendon's in the backseat while Butcher goes off somewhere to do something artistic. Brendon wakes to Bill's hands on his sides, and his lips in his hair.

"Mm," he mumbles, blinking open his eyes. Bill's graceful, but he's not graceful enough to have squeezed himself beneath Brendon's sleeping body. They're mostly just squashed together and there's nowhere else Brendon would rather be. He tilts his head down, mouth catching on Bill's chin, his cheek. "Hey,"

"You up for taking a walk?" Brendon shrugs and their hips slide together. Bill grins, and shoves lightly at Brendon's shoulder. "C'mon, kid, there's a whole world out there you've never seen before." Brendon rolls his eyes, but when he fumbles out of the car, his eyes practically bug out of his head.

He's never seen the ocean before.

\--

Butcher finds the apartment because apparently he has more friends and friends of friends than Brendon can even wrap his head around. It's small, one room with a kitchen area off to the side and a tiny little bathroom tucked in the back corner. It also has an entire wall of floor to ceiling windows that lead out to a little balcony and a distant view of the water through the trees. Brendon spins around, feet slipping on the wooden floor and laughs.

"It's nothing much," Butcher says, "A friend's moving in with her boyfriend and the landlord's kind of bitch about breaking leases and all that shit. So, yeah, technically you'll be squatting, but it's a roof for at least the next three or four months."

"It's fucking perfect, Butch." Bill slides his arms around Butcher's neck and kisses him hard. "Thank you."

Butcher laughs, hooking his arms around Bill's waist and spinning him around. "My pleasure, Bill."

There's a mattress in the corner, a gift from the former occupant, and Brendon snags Bill and Butcher by their waistbands, pulling them along. "Let's christen this place."

Bill laughs and tumbles down, taking Brendon and Butcher with him. It's easy, so easy, and sweet; Butcher on his back with Brendon crouched between his legs, hands splayed on his hips. Bill settled behind Brendon, leaving feather light kisses over the still sore inked lines of his tattoo. Sunlight pours in through the open windows, casting everything in muted gold and Brendon's happy, again, happy since he hasn't been in a long time.

\--

After months of kisses, after fucking on every available surface they have (and some that they don't), Brendon can feel Butcher getting restless. It's not anything he says, and Brendon's not presumptuous enough to think that he can see into his head, but there are more longing, searching looks out into the ocean, he twitches when Bill mentions tomorrows.

Brendon doesn't know how Bill does it, how Bill smiles and fucks him harder, how Bill doesn't seem phased that this is their life now. He's learned not to ask questions, and when he finds Butcher dressed one morning, crumpled cup in hand, he knows. "Hey," Butcher nods, and Brendon swallows, because he's gotten quieter lately. Brendon knows what quiet means.

"There's this opening down in Sedona for a cook in this restaurant," is what he says and Brendon blinks, because wow, that's a lot farther than he was thinking. He also wasn't thinking this soon, but it makes sense. Butcher's eyes look sad, and in all the time Brendon's known him, they've never looked like that.

"That's great, Butch." Brendon whispers, and Butcher tries to smile at him, but the twist of his lips isn't convincing. "What the hell's wrong?" Butcher stiffens, but he knows better than to hide it from Brendon. They've been fucking for the past three months, even if Brendon can't read his mind, he can read the sinews of his muscles and the way his skin curves.

It takes him longer to answer than Brendon expects. "Gotta go back to Chicago first." Brendon blinks, but when Butcher looks back up at him, he knows. Of course he knows. His legs aren't steady under his weight and he sways out, arm catching at Butcher's shoulder because he can't hold himself up.

"How." It's supposed to be a question, but he can't bring himself to let the words curl up. "How long." His voice sounds stronger than he feels, and it's some consolation that Butcher looks as bad as the inside of Brendon's head feels.

"Bren -- "

"How long, Butch."

Butcher sighs and closes his eyes, rubbing the knuckles of his free hand along his forehead. "They don't know, really. Ryl went to check on her, she hadn't been out in a while and -- " Brendon can't breathe, tears are scalding down his cheeks and he doesn't move to stop them. He doesn't think he could.

"And."

"Duck, you don't want to hear this." Butcher's swallowing hard and wringing his hands, and Brendon drags in a shaky breath because it's the only thing he can do. He flexes his hand against Butcher's shoulder and when Butcher looks at him, Brendon hopes that his eyes can convey everything he needs them to.

"You're right," he whispers, and Butcher is kind enough to keep eye contact. "I don't want to know. I have to, Butch, please."

"Pete'd been out of town. They didn't. They didn't know how long she'd been gone for." Brendon nods his thanks, takes a step away and then another, and Butcher calls his name, Brendon's almost positive that he does, but he can't stop moving. He doesn't want to throw up all over the apartment and wake Bill up.

\--

Bill wakes up, sits up, and looks at Brendon, lazy smile melting off his face as memory floods in.

In that moment, Brendon hates him a little, hates him for not fucking waking him up and telling Brendon the moment he found out. Hates him for not trying harder to save Vicky, hates him for driving away from Chicago without letting Brendon fucking say goodbye. The last time Brendon saw her she was walking down the street, thin and hopeless, screaming for help with every shattered movement of her body and he couldn't help, too trapped in his own chemical haze.

"She died thinking we just left," Brendon says, voice low and dead, even to his own ears and Bill shudders. "She died thinking we didn't care. She died thinking I didn't care."

Bill doesn't speak and Brendon distantly thinks that's a goddamn good thing. If Bill opens his mouth, if he tries to explain or justify, Brendon knows he'll come up out of the chair and hit him, break and shatter and ruin and punish. His hands clench into fists, anger and despair throbbing in his chest.

Butcher's sitting at the table, shoulders hunched as he draws and maybe he's crying a little, tears slipping down his cheeks, but Brendon doesn't give a fuck. "Here." He pushes it across the table, but Brendon doesn't bother looking.

He slams his arm down on the table, feeling Bill's eyes on him, pulse point up. "Make it hurt," he grits out through his teeth and Butcher bows his head.

\--

His wrist hurts, his wrist fucking throbs, and Butcher offered, he offered painkillers, offered medicinal heaven from the needles in his bag, but Brendon had shaken his head, Brendon had gritted his teeth and bared it, because Victoria had and she's dead and he wasn't going to let her be forgotten, not ever.

He's still not talking to Bill by the time Butcher leaves, eyes grim behind his oversized sunglasses. "I'll be back," he says, and his voice sounds nothing like what Brendon had gotten used to. "I just." He waves his hand around, and on anyone else it wouldn't make any sense, but Brendon knows Butcher now, knows as much as he can. He nods gravely and squeezes Butcher hard enough that his bones creak. "I'll be back, Duck." Brendon nods, but doesn't let go, and when he kisses Butcher, both their lips taste like salt. He wonders which of the two of them is lying more.

"I'll see you, Bill," Butcher says, tipping his head back, and Brendon turns away as they kiss. It's not jealousy, there's still anger that swirls low in his stomach, but it's less at Bill now, it's at the universe, at the god Brendon never really believed in the first place. It's at Vicky herself, and when Brendon thinks of it like that, he presses at the V on his wrist, remembering. He can't forget. He couldn't, not now, even if he wanted to.

When Butcher's gone, driving away in their two hundred dollar get-away car, Bill reaches for Brendon's hand, squeezing at his fingers.

After a minute, Brendon squeezes back.

\--

Bill starts busking again and it claws at some part of Brendon's mind, rankling that Bill can get back out there with his guitar and his voice and Brendon can't. Or really, maybe it's just that he knows he shouldn't be back out there, that it's the opening to temptation he's proven he's not strong enough to avoid. He sits in the apartment with his bass, not thinking about baseball bats, and plucks out the backbones of songs, wishing he could bring out the meat and skin, the pretty melodies.

"You're bored," Bill says one night, laying sated beneath a sheet tangled around their legs.

Brendon hums in agreement, shifting closer. He's mellow and happy, content to trace the shifting pattern of shadows on Bill's chest. "Yeah, a little." He's begun to think like Butcher, in way, aware of the crawling beneath his skin, urging him to get up and get out, to move and go.

"I have an idea," Bill says, kissing his eyebrow with a half smile.

There's a bar on the beach, literally set in the sand away from the highway and the parking lot. The owner is a short guy with red hair and a pinstriped fedora named Patrick, who bought it sensing a business opportunity, but forgot he wasn't all that fond of people or alcohol. He doesn't ask a whole lot of inconvenient questions when it comes to pesky little details like age, he just looks Brendon over and offers a crooked smile. He knows Bill, somehow, and that seems to be enough.

"It's every night," Patrick says, "The place opens at nine and, well, it kind of closes whenever the last person leaves, which is usually like four thirty or five. You'd need to get here earlier, say seven or eight, to stock up and get things ready, but it's a small place and doesn't usually get that crowded."

Brendon raps his knuckles on the counter and grins. It's small and dark, private, and he likes that. He picked up a few skills from Butcher, because Butcher knows how to do a little bit of everything, and he realizes, with a small start, that he wants this.

"What do you say?" Patrick asks.

"Yeah." Brendon smiles. "Sounds good."

\--

Brendon's had a lot of fantastic sex, and over ninety percent of it was with Bill. It's not Brendon playing favorites, it's straight fact, and he doesn't realize how much the bar affects their sex life until he sneaks in at quarter past five one morning and realizes they haven't touched each other in days. It's an odd thing to think about, and it sits funny, heavy against his chest and leaden in his stomach. He sits there, on the corner of the mattress just watching Bill sleep until one of his arms swings out, cuffing Brendon on the side.

"What the hell?"

"I can feel you vibrating, Urie," he mumbles, eyes still closed under the arm that's thrown over them. "What?"

"No, nothing," Brendon mumbles. He can't figure out how to bring up something they've never actually talked about and never needed to. His fingers itch to skim across the skin of Bill's stomach, but he doesn't know if he can, can't imagine why he couldn't. "I'm just tired." Bill snorts, obviously still awake. He shimmies easily, the sheet slipping further down his torso. Brendon looks, and then tries not to, cheeks hot with the things he doesn't understand.

"What is with you?" Bill starts tugging on Brendon's wrist, and without realizing it or even meaning to, he starts to dig his heels in. Bill's eyes pop open quick. "Seriously, are you drunk? You know you're not supposed to do that while you're serving customers, right? Especially by yourself." It's Brendon's turn to roll his eyes, and Bill wraps his hand tighter, starting to tug again.

"I just." Brendon gestures wildly with his free hand, angling somewhere near the couch they'd managed to find a few weeks after Butcher had left.

"You just want us to sleep on the cramped little couch when we have this whole mattress? Seriously, what the hell's wrong with you?" Brendon honestly has no idea. It's this heavy thing weighing down on him that he hasn't let himself think about, not really. Bill's half sitting up now, hair falling in curly tufts across his cheeks, eyes lucid but cranky.

"I saw you," the words slide past Brendon's lips before he can stop them, and even then he has to resist the urge to clamp his free hand over his mouth. Bill arches a brow and Brendon can feel his skin flushing. He's almost sure he left his brain somewhere between here and the bar, because he's known Bill for over two years now, and he's never once been this dumb.

"You see me all the time."

Brendon huffs out a breath and runs his fingers through his hair. "With that dude from the fourth floor, okay? The one with the camera? I saw you guys, and I like. I can sleep on the couch if you want me to." Something Brendon's never seen before shoots across Bill's face, but it's gone before he can recognize it.

"Can you get in bed, please?" He lets go of Brendon's wrist, using his fingers to pinch at the bridge of his nose, and Brendon instantly, instantly misses the contact. He doesn't know what that says about him. "He's just a guy, Brendon. A guy who wanted to take my picture. It doesn't mean anything, okay?"

Brendon's pretty sure it's not okay, Brendon's pretty sure that there's something else going on entirely, but he's tired, he's so, so tired suddenly, and when Bill leans over, trapping their mouths together, Brendon kisses him back.

He wouldn't know how not to.

\--

The fourth floor boy's name is Jon and he has scruffy brown hair and an easy, mellow smile. He wears jeans with holes in the knees and white tee shirts that stretch across his belly and round his arms and flip flops, even when the bouts of fleeting, freezing rain come. Bill drags Brendon down the stairs one Saturday morning when he's tired from a long night and three hours of sleep and in no fucking mood to deal with this guy who has Bill humming under his breath and yelling conversations over the balcony railing so fucking sweet it has Brendon's teeth on edge.

Jon's apartment is the same basic shape as theirs but so different it's like being in a different world.

The entire kitchen area is dedicated to slightly intimidating and very expensive looking photography stuff and the walls are covered in prints, some in frames, but many tacked up with scotch tape and thumbtacks. There's a screen blocking off the bed, which Brendon smirks at; it's so fucking prude, for Christ's sake, and there's an acoustic bass in the corner that makes him want to steal the damn thing because he doesn't want to have anything in common with this guy, this Jon Walker.

"Hi," Jon says, with a wide smile, holding out his hand.

"Hey," Brendon replies; Jon's palm is wide and warm and callused and should be comforting. He wants to squeeze his fingers until Jon says uncle.

Brendon's well aware he's being a little ridiculous.

They sit on the couch, the three of them, with Bill perfectly at ease in the middle with an arm around Brendon's shoulders and hand steadily creeping up Jon's thigh. Bill laughs at Jon's jokes and flirts like only he can, all the while playing with the short hairs on the back of Brendon's neck and Brendon can feel Jon watching them, eyes slipping back and froth from Bill's face to his hand, trying to decipher the intimacy between them.

Brendon doesn't envy him that task; he can't even unravel what's between him and Bill.

"Are you two -- ?" Jon eventually asks, cheeks blushing pink as Bill breaks out in whoops of laughter as he waves his hand around.

"Hell no." He kisses Brendon's temple, exaggerated and smacking. "This kid's my best friend."

"Yeah," Brendon echoes and Jon's brilliant, relieved smile shouldn't cut.

\--

Bill kisses Jon as they leave, slides down the wall next to the door and twines his arms around Jon's head to pull him closer. Their lips disentangle with a lurid pop, and Bill smacks Jon's ass before the door is politely slammed in their faces. He grins the whole way up the stairs, doesn't hear a word Brendon says, but still kisses Brendon back when Brendon shoves him against their own wall and takes command of his mouth, leaving bruises with his tongue.

Brendon drops to his knees before Bill can stop him, and he's not sure, but he's almost positive Bill had tried. He's pretty sure they should set boundaries or at least some ground rules, but Bill comes in his mouth, and then licks the taste out, so he's not sure, but he knows something's changed.

\--

He expects Bill to get bored with Jon, like he does.

He really doesn't expect Jon to fall into something that looks uncomfortably like love.

\--

Jon's over at their place and he's been there all fucking day with his camera and his flip flops and his easy smile, eyes tracing over the long lines of Bill's body like he's looking at the most beautiful thing that was ever brought into existence. He keeps snapping pictures of the most mundane shit, Brendon's three pairs of battered cons jumbled together by the front door, the bowls stacked next to the kitchen sink in lieu of having any cabinet to house them, Bill's hands on the neck of his guitar.

Twilight's fallen and Jon still hasn't left and Brendon's skin is beginning to itch.

He's sitting cross legged on the end of the bed, pages of empty sheet music spread out over his knees, attempting to give some kind of form to the riffs he played again and again back on the Chicago streets. He has a vague idea in the back of his mind of doing something with the notes, maybe, turn them into songs and see what happens when the wind blows, but he can't fucking concentrate.

Bill and Johnny-boy are on the couch, side by side, touching from the shoulder's down and, fuck, they're not doing anything. Brendon almost thinks it would be easier if they were the kind of classless idiots who'd make out, get hot and heavy, right there with him watching because then at least he would have a reason for the anger twisting poisonously in his gut. He could throw something, hit them, storm out, make a scene and he'd be justified.

But no, they're just sitting there watching TV and fucking holding hands.

"Fuck," Brendon says clearly and they both jump and turn, but not apart. Jon's hand comes up to Bill's shoulder as they look over the couch, staring at him.

"Christ Bren," Bill exhales with a chuckle, "What?"

Brendon shoves the papers away and climbs to his feet, restless, aimless anger simmering beneath his skin. "Nothing. I'm going to work, I'll be back later."

He grabs his keys and his wallet and bursts out, ignoring Bill calling his name.

\--

There's this guy who comes into the bar often enough that Brendon would call him a regular. He's got two sleeves of brightly colored ink, a chin-ring and glasses without rims. He's about the coolest person Brendon's ever seen, and Brendon busked in Chicago. It's a slow night, and Brendon's still torn up and restless, can't stop thinking about the tilt of Bill's hips and the way Jon's hand had molded around his waist, fit perfectly like he belonged there.

Brendon makes a drink wrong three times, messes up order after order and completely forgets where they keep the ice. It's pretty easy to say that it isn't a good night.

"You alright, kid?" The guy with the glasses is sitting in his usual seat, the stool right by the edge of the bar and closest to where Brendon stands most. On a normal night, Brendon would grin it off, change the subject and not think about it. Brendon is disarmingly good at shutting his brain off. Bill fucks with all of his filters though, and Brendon can even feel the corners of his mouth tugging down.

"Yeah, I'll make it," he mutters and for a completely self-indulgent moment wonders if he really will. The thought is kind of ridiculous, considering what he's been through. There's this little voice in the back of his mind that tells him that those times were with Bill though. He only made it out because of Bill, he's only alive because of Bill, he's pretty much nothing alone, and Brendon is not stupid. He's knows with an absolutely certainty that it's true. "So hey," he says, and the guy looks up from his drink, a non - alcoholic ginger ale spritzer, eyebrow cocked. Brendon feels the buzzing in his skin kick up an ache he'd been pushing to the back of his mind. "So hey, do you give ink too, or do you just show it off to the world?"

Brendon flashes his arm, in case the guy hadn't noticed and as he finishes his drink, he grins, eyes a white flash in the dimness of the room.

\--

The guy's name is Andy, and Brendon describes what he wants as they walk up the beach to the parking lot. "Yeah, no problem," Andy says, "That's simple enough to freehand. Gonna hurt like a bitch though." Brendon bears his teeth in something that only barely resembles a smile and doesn't bother explaining that all his ink has scarred him in some way more permanent and enduring than black lines etched on skin. He needs them to hurt.

Andy has a place fifteen minutes up the highway and Brendon follows in the second three hundred dollar car Bill charmed off a friend's sister's ex-husband after Butcher called from Pensecola to say the rust bucket died on the side of a swamp highway and he wasn't going to be able to get it back. He cranks the radio up loud and rolls down the window, letting the hard, fast, frantic songs spill into the night, drumming his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel.

His skin is buzzing, now with both the restless, clawing feeling he got from Bill and Johnny-boy and the first rush of endorphins just from thinking about the low, bone deep, shivering buzz of the needle.

Andy pulls off in his jeep and Brendon follows, parking in front of a sprawling, falling down little shack with half a dozen other cars crammed in at awkward angles in front of the place. Light blazes from the windows, light and the rough thud of a bassline, people laughing and yelling. Brendon slams his car door and shivers a little, as memories try to crawl from the back his mind, but no, fuck that. Not this night.

"Follow me," Andy says with a half smile and Brendon does.

\--

Andy's got sterile needles and a moderately comfortable kitchen outside of which a party is raging in. There are faces Brendon can't possibly remember but does, and there's something else clawing in his stomach, something dark and twisting, something that feels suspiciously like need. They've been in Washington for nearly six months and Brendon's been clean for almost ten, but he still gets hit with it now and again, doesn't ever actually expect that need to ever leave him.

"You don't ever drink," he mentions casually as Andy starts to lean over him with the gun at the ready. The skin at Brendon's collarbone is buzzing and his palms are sweaty around the keys that won't fit inside his pockets. Andy fluffs his hair out of his face and catches his bottom lip between his teeth nodding as he starts to work.

"I keep edge," he mutters under his breath, not unkindly, and Brendon nods inanely as they fall silent again.

It hurts, it hurts like a bitch and Brendon can almost hear his collarbones groaning. He smiles for a minute, about to lean back and tell Bill, but this is an unfamiliar kitchen and Bill is nowhere in sight. Bill doesn't even know where he is. Brendon isn't dumb enough to think he doesn't care, and there's this moment of intense panic where he thinks about dying, where he thinks about unidentifiable bodies and how Bill would worry if he never came home.

He wonders if they're having sex on the same couch that he and Bill have sex on, wonders if he and Bill will ever stop having sex, wonders if --

And then he stops wondering, because Christ, fuck, that hurts. He must moan, his eyes feel like they're rolling back in his head, but he can do this. He can totally do this. He opens his eyes to concern in Andy's face, which makes sense because the buzzing has stopped.

"You're done," Andy says and Brendon blinks. "Seriously?"

Andy chuckles, smearing Vaseline over the fresh ink and Brendon can feel the bite sink into his bones. "You kind of zoned out there for a minute, but you're done." He scotch tapes paper towels over the skin and pushes back from the kitchen table. "I'm gonna assume you know how to take care of it? Wash with unscented soap, don't rub on it, and for the love of God, don't put any fucking Neosporin on it." Brendon nods and swings his legs over. He feels a little lightheaded, ears rushing softly. "You can hang out, if you want."

"Yeah, sure," Brendon nods, standing and stumbling past a couple people spilled out onto the back porch.

It's hot inside, hot and fucking crowded with a mass of people, shoving and laughing, moving and dancing. The smell of beer hangs heavy in the air and Brendon realizes how dry his throat is and how fucking good a cold one would feel sliding down his sore throat. It seems like everyone is holding plastic cups and cans and bottles, but he can't seem to get his tongue unstuck from the roof o his mouth long enough to ask where.

He ends up in a bedroom, not sure at all how he got there.

There's a couple people sitting on the bed, hunched over like they're whispering secrets to each other. A girl movies and Brendon sees the mirror centered between them, sees the razors and the neat white lines. He goes still and they all look at him, questioningly, expectantly.

He wants.

He wants so bad he can taste it.

"Fuck," Brendon murmurs. "Fuck."

"It's okay," one of the girls says, eye bright and unfocused, "It's wonderful." She holds out her hand, welcoming and inviting and Brendon wants so bad, he's moved to take.

He catches sight of his wrist, the V branded into his skin and freezes. Vicky walking away from the corner, Vicky laughing, Vicky singing, Vicky dying alone and abandoned. "No," Brendon chokes out and he turns and runs.

\--

It takes Brendon longer than it should to get back to the apartment building because his hands are shaking so hard. He's expecting Jon and Bill entwined on the couch, or for Bill to be gone entirely, and isn't really expecting the body huddled on the couch and the blue light of the TV reflecting gorgeously off of Bill's skin.

"Mm," he mumbles, sitting up as Brendon slips in, even though Brendon's trying to be quiet. "Hey, Brenny." Brendon nods, and he tries to throw the keys on the table they'd rescued from the Salvation Army store, but his hands are shaking, his hands are shaking so hard, and Bill must notice, because he's off the couch and at Brendon's side before he can even blink. "Brendon what the hell did you do?" He's pawing at the cloth on Brendon's collarbone, and Brendon would stop him, Brendon tries to stop him, but he's shaking so hard and his throat is still dry, and the room is going dark around the edges.

"I needed -- " And Bill knows better, or he should, but the paper tears, and his eyes go wide at the words.

"Bren," he says, and Brendon can hear the fear in his voice.

"I was safe, there were sterile needles, I just. Didn't eat today or something and there were." The words die in his throat and he starts to cough because it's better than the alternative. Bill's hands are soft on the sides of his face and it's like the first time, almost, because Brendon wants, he needs, but he shouldn't.

"Bren," Bill's kissing him before Brendon can say no, Bill's holding him gently, gently, gently, like he's something special, like he's something, and Brendon knows he shouldn't, he shouldn't want to, but he can't stop himself.

\--

They don't talk about it because they never talk, but something else shifts and Brendon knows it.

Bill's stuff starts slowly migrating down to Jon's; a pair of jeans, a couple shirts, some shoes, mostly items left there as they were stripped off, Brendon assumes, and not grabbed on his way back up the stairs. Then one day his guitar disappears and Brendon has to fuck him bent over the bathroom sinks, biting purple and blue bruises into the fair skin stretched across his shoulder blades.

"I was thinking," Bill says one night as he lays in bed, eyes half lidded, watching Brendon redress, scavenging his jeans out from underneath the couch and his shirt from between the mattress and the wall. He's only half listening as he dresses, jamming on his shoes and searching for his keys. Bill's always been a big talker, but post coitus he tends to ramble on tangents that are half genuine philosophy and half indulgent ramblings.

"Yeah?" Brendon arches his back and stands. His fucking keys were in his pocket when he walked through the door and now they're not. "What about?"

"Jon plays bass and he's good," Bill exhales, lips turning up at the corners in a soft smile. "I was thinking y'know how Patrick owns that club, maybe the three of us could play a couple shows? Nothing fancy, just some Dylan covers we played back in Chicago."

Brendon's stomach twists a little. Jon recognized the song on his back, started humming it, and Brendon wanted to hit him. "Yeah, that's fine, whatever." He keeps his tone purposefully flat as he fishes his keys out from behind his guitar, newly purchased and still not used enough to really feel like his.

Bill hums. "Awesome."

"Yeah." Brendon shoves the front door open. "Fucking fabulous."

\--

Brendon has always loved the Butcher, and the flood of warmth he gets in his stomach when he opens the door is nothing compared to the utter calm he feels when Butcher crushes him into a hug. "Growing out your hair, Duck?" he asks, voice low and smooth, and fuck, Christ, Brendon's forgotten how much he really missed him.

"It's the nickname, man. I was trying to see if you'd go for something else. Mouse, or like, lion or something. I could totally be a lion." He tips his head back and growls, and the rumbling in his chest feels even better because Butcher's arm stays wrapped around his shoulders. Fuck, Brendon hasn't felt this good in months.

"Where's Bills, man?" Butcher asks, and it's almost instant, the way the smile falls off Brendon's mouth. It takes him a minute but he pushes Butcher off, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Fuck, I don't know, man. Out with his boyfriend, probably." It is very possible that Brendon sneers out the word "boyfriend". It's also possible there's a hand-motion that goes along with it. He'll never admit it.

Butcher snorts out a laugh and, because he is Butcher, wraps his arm around Brendon's shoulders and presses his lips against the ink carved into the skin of Brendon's collarbone. "New?" He asks, and Brendon shrugs.

"Couple months." Butcher makes an appreciative noise, raising a hand to run over the bumps and ridges of Brendon's skin, petting him softly, petting him like a cat and Brendon knows it's meant to soothe, Brendon knows all of Andy Mrotek's fucking cunning plans, okay? He refuses to be soothed.

"I coulda done it better," he mumbles, right there, right against Brendon's ear, and Brendon shivers, but he nods. It's not like it's not true. "Missed you, kid," Butcher mumbles, mouthing slanting up Brendon's neck, to his cheek, before finally, finally settling against his lips. Brendon anchors his hands on Butcher's hips and very pointedly doesn't think about the rumpled sheets on their mattress and how they're still sticky from Bill's come.

"Missed you too," he says, and means it.

\--

Fucking Butcher is different from fucking Bill; it's softer and easier, tinged with a kind of lazy mellowness that Brendon and Bill never quite seem to manage.

Butcher layers kisses across his collarbone, flicking out his tongue against the new ink, smoothing his hands down the curve of Brendon's sides. "I'm not who you're looking for," he says with a soft chuckle, working at the button of Brendon's fly. "I thought you didn't want the lyrics, Duck?"

Brendon chuckles and shimmies his hips, nipping at Butcher's earlobe. "Most people still don't get it."

"Idiots," Butcher comments, circling his hand around Brendon's dick. He laughs and sucks in a breath as pleasure shoots up his spine. Butcher is good at this and Brendon doesn't owe anyone anything and he's made no promises and no commitments, so all he has to do in enjoy.

It's easy, fucking Butcher with afternoon sunlight flooding into the room, Butcher's hand on his dick, jacking sweet and steady, Butcher's hip canting against Brendon's hip. "Missed you, Duck," Butcher murmurs and Brendon kisses him hard.

\--

It's still weird, sleeping in the bed without Bill there. Brendon knows he's going, knows he's practically gone, even though Bill probably doesn't even get it yet. It's weird, even though he changed the sheets, but Butcher's low, nasal breathing on the couch helps. He falls into a fitful, light sleep that he's completely shaken from when he feels the mattress dip and shake.

"'ho'ssat?" The words are mumbled past his lips because it's dark, and he can't reach his glasses fast enough. "Butch?" A familiar hand clamps across his lips, and unruly curls wisp across his cheeks. Brendon would know Bill anywhere, he doesn't really need the, "Shh," in his ear, or the light nips on the underside of his chin. "Bill, what're you -- ?" He only manages to whisper the words out because Bill takes his hand away to get his pants off, but then he's back, long, long body pressed against Brendon's. Brendon moans, a low growl, because nothing gets better than this, nothing can possibly be better than Bill sliding inside of him slowly, slowly, like he has nowhere better to be, like his eyes aren't hidden behind his curls.

Brendon arches back, head pressed hard against Bill's shoulder, panting softly in the darkness. It's good, it's so good and for a moment Brendon can pretend things haven't changed at all between them. Bill mouths hot kisses along his shoulder, arms tight around Brendon's chest. He's whispering tangled syllables, meaningless nonsense taking no form in the utter darkness of the apartment.

"Bill," Brendon gasps.

"He said," Bill replies, voice desperate and tight, afraid. "Jon said he loved me."

Brendon comes in thick spurts over his stomach and Bill's hands without having been touched.

\--

After Bill falls asleep, Brendon slides out of bed and pads across the room, shaking Butcher's arm. "Are you still going to LA?"

"Yeah, tomorrow." He blinks and yawns. "Fuck, what time is it?"

"Can I come?"

"What?"

"Please, can I come?"

"Yeah. Okay."

\--

Bill wakes as Brendon's packing, jamming jeans and shirts and underwear into his battered backpack, bought at army surplus store and covered in patches to make it more interesting. He shifts in bed, throwing out an arm, eyes opening when he doesn't find a warm body. "Bren?"

"I'm going to LA with Butcher," Brendon says, shrugging on a hoodie. "It's just for a day or two."

Bill blinks and stares, brow creasing. "LA?"

"Yeah." Brendon's skin is itching, his insides clawing. He has to get away for a few days, he needs to be able to breathe again, if only for a moment. "I just need a break."

"The show," Bill says, voice still thick and clogged from sleep. "Sunday."

Brendon almost fucking throws his shoe against the wall. He'd forgotten about the show, arranged as a thank you from Patrick, them playing as an opener for another act as his club. Them, the happy little trio of Bren, Bill, and Johnny Boy Walker, all up onstage pretending they're fucking best friends or something. "I'll be back by then."

Bill stares, expression closed. "Promise?"

"Yeah." Brendon shoulders his backpack. "I promise."

\--

Butcher says something like, "Wow, have you guys been even been apart this long since you got to WA?" He says it just like that, too, double-you-ay. Brendon blinks at him and looks straight ahead at the road ahead of them, and he bites down hard on his lip to keep the words from flooding out. Butcher touches his shoulder, and Brendon can't help himself.

"I think," he says, and he can't breathe, the words getting stuck in his throat. "I think Bill's in love." Butcher raises a brow, and points at Brendon. Brendon shakes his head, holding in a sigh. "He has this boyfriend, and like. Like. I just. I hate him. I hate him so much, Butch. And I just." Butcher chuckles a little, but Brendon's not joking.

"You're -- "

"No. Don't. Don't, Butch, I can't." Brendon's stomach settles when he looks at Butcher's face, and he doesn't know why, he doesn't know how, but Butcher makes it okay, a little.

\--

LA is hot and crowded, seedy and alive.

Brendon buys a pair of big, cheap sunglasses and hides behind them, lets Butcher ink a cascade of stars down his shoulder in the early hours of the morning when they're both just a very little drunk. He falls asleep tucked up against Butcher's chest and dreams about Bill and Vicky, kissing over her shoulder.

Driving back, watching the coast change from sun soaked to northern gray he almost says, "Turn around," he almost says, "Go back."

But he doesn't, he can't, he won't, he doesn't really fucking know.

He cranks up the radio and rolls down the window, lacing his fingers over Butcher's on the gearshift.

"You okay, Duck?" Butcher asks and Brendon nods.

He's fine.

\--

They get there in time. It's touch and go, there's traffic, hours and hours of traffic and Brendon's almost relieved when he thinks they won't make it.

They get there in time, and the club's windows are big enough that Brendon can see in them, Brendon can make out Bill's long, long legs with a scarf wrapped around his knee and his hair tucked behind his ears. Brendon can see Jon, one palm riding low on Bill's back, and Butcher says something like, "Where should I park, Duck?" And the bile's clogging Brendon's throat, tears burning at his eyes.

"Can you just." He waves his hand around and winces, because it's the arm that's still stiff, covered in new ink that's just for him, like a present almost, each and every star kissed as Butcher dried them with a damp rag, blowing on Brendon's skin lightly. "Can we just drive, Butch?" Butcher blinks, and tilts his head towards the windows. He can see Bill too, can probably see the wring of his hands even better than Brendon can. He can see it, and he knows it, knows what it looks like from the outside, but Brendon knows it against his skin, against his heart. "Jonny - Boy should save the day, don't you think?"

For just a second, for just a second in this light, Butcher's face looks pained, his eyes dark and strained, but then it's gone, and when Brendon looks again, he looks the same as ever. "You're a good man, Bren," he murmurs as he drives them past, even as Brendon's laying flat against his seat, as if Bill could look out and see him. Bill turns his head, and Brendon swears, keeping his head ducked. When they've pulled away far enough, he straights himself out, brushing imaginary lint off his tee shirt. "You wanna tell me what that was about?" Brendon shakes his head, but Butcher's looking at him intently enough that Brendon can't keep it in.

"Jonny - Boy should get to save the day, Butch. That's all." It's a lie, but Butcher doesn't push.

Brendon can't express how grateful he is.

\--

They end up parked outside the apartment.

Butcher cuts the engine, but Brendon doesn't move. He keeps seeing fucking Jon standing there, hand on Bills back, the two of them existing like they're the only ones in the world and it's maybe killing him, he thinks, knowing that there isn't really all that much room in that pair for him. Butcher taps his fingers on the steering wheel and watches from the corner of his eye, gaze sliding over Brendon's hunched form like he's trying to read secrets written in the lines of his body.

"Do you want me to stay?" Butch asks, voice soft. He slides an arm around Brendon's neck.

"No," Brendon mumbles, even as he tips his head onto Butch's chest, breathing in the scent of his skin through the thin fabric of his tee shirt. "I'm fine."

Butcher smooths back his hair and kisses his temple. "I'll stay."

Brendon exhales hard, feeling dull relief ease through his veins. He thinks, or maybe he knows, Bill's going to make the final move down to Jon's after this, if only to prove a point they both understand, but don't want to admit. "Okay."

He kisses Butcher's nipple through his shirt, catching at it with his teeth and Butcher inhales sharply, head dropping down. "Bren, you don't-"

"Shut up," Brendon mumbles, working at the fly of Butcher's jeans. "Shut the fuck up."

He twists in the seat, bracing himself on Butcher's thighs and sucks, swallows, tries to forget.

\--

Bill's been living downstairs (Brendon can't think of it as him living at Jon's. He just. Can't.) for a month, sneaking up in the middle of the night and fucking Brendon until they both have fresh bruises, and Brendon's not sure if Butcher sleeps through it or if he's just kind.

They don't talk when Bill makes the trek up, and it's not that Brendon has his legs open and waiting, not that Bill can just touch him and he'll fall apart, but they've never needed words, not living on top of each other as they were, and now that they don't, now that they have a whole floor separating them, they still don't talk. Brendon's not sure they know how.

The door creaks on its hinges, and this building is old. Brendon wonders how Jon never knows that Bill's leaving.

"Hey," he whispers, and Brendon wishes he could pretend he were asleep, wishes it didn't hurt so bad, this need that he has for Bill's fingers, for his skin. "Hey," Bill whispers back, teeth nipping at Brendon's jaw. Butcher's house-sitting someone in the building's dogs, or their plants or something, so even though he's been back up every morning, he sleeps somewhere else every night.

They fuck with the lights on, and Brendon drinks in every sinew of Bill's back, committing it to memory in case it's the last time, and when Bill slides inside of him, Brendon's got to blink the tears out of his eyes.

\--

Bill says, "Jon's thinking about maybe getting a bigger place for us."

Brendon's laying on his back, come roped across his stomach, and static explodes in his mind, fucking white noise, because Bill can't do that. They have been through too much for too long, nearly three fucking years of highs and lows, songs and drugs, and he can't just leave because of Johnny-Boy Walker. "Whatever," Brendon says and rolls onto his side.

In the morning, Bill kisses him lazy and opened mouthed before disappearing out the door, back to his place and Brendon goes through his day in stilted, shattered bursts. He tries to play and creates only clattered, discordant notes, he tries to write and it dissolves into ripping black lines seared across the paper. He goes out and buys paint for the walls of his place, the apartment that now only belongs to him and somehow comes back with an entire gallon of black.

He sits on the couch, watching the sun sink behind the horizon and Bill doesn't come and doesn't come and doesn't come. Which, of course, sometimes he does, some nights he stays away, but a year ago he would have just known when Brendon needed him and he'd have been there, warm and solid and real.

"I don't love him," Brendon lies to the darkness.

He opens the paint, dips his fingers in and throws it against one of the walls. The pain flies out and spatters against the faded white like tendrils of shadow dark blood.

"Fuck you," Brendon grits out, "Fuck you."

\--

Butcher's the one that finds him, half passed out on the couch, black paint stuck to the palms of his hands, hiding under his fingernails. Butcher takes one look at the mess on the wall and another at the mess Brendon's made of his bottom lip. He's on his knees in front of Brendon, palms on his thighs, not pressing, not pushing, just pressing his face into the softness of Brendon's stomach and his hands around his waist.

"It'll be okay, Bren," he mumbles, and Brendon doesn't believe him, it can't possibly fucking be okay, but maybe it won't suck as hard as he's expecting it to. If he really thinks about it, Brendon doesn't really think he'll make it past thirty, and he's almost twenty now. That's only another ten years without Bill and he lived the first sixteen without him just fine.

He can do it again.

Butcher presses a light kiss to Brendon's stomach, chaste almost, in how it doesn't actually go anywhere. "I'll be heading out soon," he says, and Brendon nods, because he was expecting this, too. Butcher leaving doesn't feel like abandonment though, Butcher leaving feels like a gift, almost, a promise, something tangible and scintillating, an offer that has no words. Brendon knows that when he does leave, he'll extend a hand out, offer Brendon solace and an open road filled with golden opportunities. Butcher's the kind of guy who has a friend in every city, and barring that, a winning smile that'll get him one. "Let me clean up that wall first though, yeah?" Brendon doesn't want to look at it, doesn't want to look at the anger Bill caused.

It's not his fault for going out and falling in love and Brendon hates that he blames him for it. Bill got out in every sense of the word, and now it's Brendon's turn.

"Butch," he says, voice breaking on the tail end when Butcher comes back in, two cans of paint in his hands and three brushes clamped between his teeth. Butcher ruffles his hair and presses a kiss to his temple, murmuring, "Bren, don't promise things you don't mean, okay?" Brendon doesn't know how Butcher always does, but he stays silent, and falls into the kind of sleep only the weary have, lulled there but the soft harmony of Butcher's voice.

He's gone when Brendon's eyes creak open, but there's a wall that's painted to match the cascade of stars of his tattoo in lieu of a note, and a soft body wrapped 'round Brendon's thighs, one that smells like turpentine and daisies and has curls that match Bill's. "Hi," Brendon says when he finds his voice, and Bill grins at him, but the smile doesn't quiet reach his eyes.

"I didn't mean it," Bill whispers, crawling the short distance up Brendon's chest to press the words against his neck, his cheek, his chin. Brendon shakes his head, a you don't have to a don't worry about it, man a it doesn't matter, all set and ready at his lips, but Bill kisses them away and somehow that's better. "I could never leave you, okay." It's a question, at least the words make it one, but there's no inflection in Bill's voice and no room for Brendon to push, to question, to cut him open and look under his skin for the answers. "I was just. It was just talk, but I'm not leaving. I wouldn't." And here is wear his voice falters, but not because of fear and not because of anger.

Brendon kisses him back, tipping his head up and dragging Bill's with him, wrapping his hand in Bill's hair and holding on.

It's all he knows how to do.


End file.
